This reminds me of the days when MMOs were more hardcore

elder42

I am dying more often, the focus is more on delivering an immersive fantasy setting than combat, the leveling is extremely slow in comparison to modern MMOs (even F2Ps that ask for $ to speed up the leveling process).

I am not sure if this is a good or bad thing. It reminds me of the days when my life was pretty much a game, because the game pretty much *required* that your life was the game in order to see progression.

The only thing I think that would make this game closer to what it feels it wants to be is world PvP. I think they didn't do that because they were afraid of scaring away a more casual userbase, but with how hardcore this game is in comparison to modern MMOs (if this were the 90s I would call this a semi-hardcore RPG), I think a lot of casual players are *not* going to be seen in this one.

And while many may like that idea, I don't know how it'll fare for Zenimax. This game... it is good, because it reminds me of how things used to be, but because of that, it also feels like a relic. Something that belongs in a museum, because it is worth checking out every now and then to remind where we came from, but not worth keeping around in daily life because the world has moved on.

Please keep in mind that I am not saying any of this to come across as a troll or to be a negative jerk. As I said, I appreciate what the game is offering, but I don't know if it's worth people checking out as their first MMO, or most MMO vets looking at something for even more than a week or two of play, let alone a monthly fee to log in daily.

I feel like I've already gone through a phase with games like this and essentially had to live life irresponsibly as a result of it (something I do not wish to repeat - being locked in a room with a game for 20+ hours a week is not healthy when the outside world continues to turn and that life is essentially decaying itself, swearing off RL friends and ignoring RL problems to invest self deeper and deeper in a fantasy world with NPCs I gain emotional attachment to and consider guildies I'll never meet as "friends").

It also feels set on emulating outdated MMO mechanics. Last I checked, games like DAoC and AC were still available for play, so I'm not sure why they felt the market needed something that is basically a re-skin of those games. GW2 and Neverwinter Online (to a lesser degree) recently attempted this, and neither of those games took off.

It is great to see the people that helped invent a genre get around to releasing their own MMO, but also disappointing to realize that perhaps this dog is just too old to give us any new tricks.

Korah_Eaglecry

I think the actual way theyve done PvP is good enough. An entire region of Tamriel is devoted to PvP and its immersive and requires tactics and strategy to be successful when faced with close to even numbers.

Open World PvP would expose lower level players to ganking which will definitely turn them off from PvP. In its current model anyone level 10+ can enter Cyrodiil and feel as if theyre making a difference with the scaling stats. The way the games PvP feels..It doesnt even feel like your typical MMO PvP. Its fun, its hassle free and its contained to an area while still providing incentive to visit and take part.

DJ_Pandatripp

I have the opposite feelings on this game than you. I love the fact that not everything is hand fed to me, and I actually have to try and work for items/quests/dungeon completion. I'm so sick of easy MMO's, where I get max level in a week, or have the best gear in a month. I am absolutely in love with ESO, and I'm super excited to see what new content we'll get in the future.

PVT_Parts

I agree entirely with the OP

elder42

Korah_Eaglecry wrote: »

The way the games PvP feels..It doesnt even feel like your typical MMO PvP.

This is DAoC PvP, which is something GW cloned to huge success. This is typical MMO PvP, but feels uncommon if the only MMOs you've ever played have been WoW and WoW clones.

DJ_Pandatripp wrote: »

I have the opposite feelings on this game than you. I love the fact that not everything is hand fed to me, and I actually have to try and work for items/quests/dungeon completion.

This is what my point is, though. It goes back to the days of MMOs requiring so much of a time investment that they became more important than life, if you wanted to fully enjoy that MMO. Many modern MMOs give you things easier (up to a point - whenever you hit the endgame wall it becomes an old-school grindfest), yes, but it's because most people who play games these days realize they just don't have the time to get that invested in video games anymore. This is why MMOs and RPGs in general have become more pick up/play/reward in 1 hour game sessions than they used to - they wanted to appeal to that wider audience in order to have greater success, and in order to do that they had to give the average person who games a few hours a week (instead of tens of hours) more "fun" value (which is just the reward center firing off, so trigger it more frequently with increased loot drops and leveling rates to keep the average casual gamer giving you money for more) for their time.

I know I might offend some people by saying this, but I want to acknowledge that I too used to be this target audience I'm about to describe, so understand I am labeling myself as well - the only people that can *really* get into a game like this, are people where their RL is so cruel to them that they can somehow justify spending that much time on a video game. Essentially, major rejects and nerds. Which is what all video games used to be tailored to, which is why they used to be so much deeper (because major rejects and nerds have nothing but time to spend escaping their life).

Of which I used to be.

I remember having bad days in school and coming home to RPGs with NPC friends who made me feel special and guildies who needed my help, and feeling okay with life. But it was wrong, because it isn't real. In order to survive, I as a major reject nerd cannot turn to a game to sink their life into, I needed to find a way to deal with the crap hand life had dealt me. Which is something I wished I had figured out sooner, but nobody bothered to tell me.

Escapism is always tempting, but it is always bad, because it is too easy to get caught up in the escape and leave the life that caused us to escape to rot and become worse.

Please understand I am not saying this to anger people, though I understand it may do that - I am just stating that I come from a background similar to what many here had (as far as RPG experience and reasons for RPGs go), and games like this are just...

It isn't that this game is designed poorly, it's that... well. It's the kind of game I would love to be able to responsibly justify to myself playing. Because I could see myself wasting the rest of my life on it, but that is exactly the problem - the investment it demands is too high. It takes itself and its world so seriously, and demands so much of the player as a result, that it just isn't possible to enjoy a game like this "in moderation". It is not designed that way. In that sense, I am not saying it is "bad" because it's broken, but it's "bad" simply because it's bad *for* people. It demands too much for what it does in return.

It's the same reason DnD got a lot of bad rep when it was new. It was so hardcore that it literally consumed and ruined lives. I know this will make me sound like an old man for saying this, but games like this... I would love for them to be able to work out in some way. Because they are beautiful and it would be amazing to have the time to be able to get fully invested in a world that is so different from our own. But now that I'm older and wiser and try something like this out, it shows me how wrong I was in my youth to ever get invested in games like this. It offers nothing of value. It demands far too much, consumes so much time, and gives nothing of real benefit in return. It is just a massive time sink, a lot of what we make out of life is based on how we spend our time, and games like this simply rob people of massive amounts of time, and give them no real-life benefit in return.

It just sets people up for bad outcomes. I wish I had known that when I was younger. It isn't that this game is bad, it's that it has the potential to be so good at what it's trying to do well, that it's bad for people.

And part of me wonders if we'd even be able to explain something like this to a caveman. I think the answer to that is "no", because it's non-essential, it doesn't even improve quality-of-life in any way, it is just a drain on life (which to me explains why some of the weirdest people I have ever "met" in life have been in MMOs, who honestly remind me a lot of some drug addicts I have had to deal with through the course of my career), and gives nothing of value in return.

Take care, kids. "Fun" is tempting, but life is not a playground, and games like this are made by people who are two steps ahead of you, carefully setting bait, hoping you'll continue to pay month after month to waste away in their virtual world and never figure it out.

Melian

It sounds like this is more about your personal issues and prejudices than about this game. No offense...

djabelek

Its good that ESO is back to the basic's of you have to put a little effort into the game. (I am just reading forums did not play beta but once) So its a fresh start for a lot of old school players that like a challenge.
Giving you the best of everything quickly is not a challenge at all. When you have to think a little get creative with your mind is a good thing, but so is sunlight
I myself have ben I the hardcore gaming world and managed my time very well
still had time to go out with wife, spend time with my family in RL so its all in how you manage your time.

elder42

Melian wrote: »

It sounds like this is more about your personal issues and prejudices than about this game. No offense...

I wouldn't say these things about "WoW" in its current form or something like "Secret World". It is very much this game.

elder42

Also, being given levels/loot faster as opposed to something like this where you get it much more slowly is not less of a challenge. It's simply time investment. Getting good at something like "Super Meat Boy" or any fighting game is time investment, but you also need to have precise timing, twitch reflexes, high levels of muscle memory for consistent, flawless execution, etc. etc. Games like this lean more towards time investment than human skill requirements. More downtime between mobs due to increased time on regeneration is not skill, it is time. Slower leveling rates is not skill, it is time. Longer runs between questgiver and quest are is not skill, it is time. More time required to get a high-level piece of loot is not skill, it is time. It feels valuable because of all the time invested, but do not confuse that with skill.

There are also higher latency concerns in MMOs than in other competitive online games (though I do discount CoD here because that game has terrible netcode which negates a lot of the skill factor, think something more like Counter-Strike which is zero-computer assist and is LANable), which means human input requirements can't be placed high enough to be properly challenging, because even 200ms of latency is enough delay to create inhuman error. There is a reason I can eat and play games like this at the same time, they are not "challenging". I may die more in this game than a casual MMO, but that is regardless of eating/drinking at the same time or not - being more "punishing" does not mean it demands more of the player, it just means it makes the mundane take more time to do.

Next to none of this requires a lot of thought, reflexes, consistent execution, or anything like that. It's 99% time investment at best. Saying it is challenging because it takes a long time is like saying sitting on the front porch to watch the grass grow is more challenging than taking 15 minutes to get off your duff and mow it, because it takes longer to wait than to do something.

snowmanflvb14_ESO

elder42 wrote: »

Melian wrote: »

It sounds like this is more about your personal issues and prejudices than about this game. No offense...

I wouldn't say these things about "WoW" in its current form or something like "Secret World". It is very much this game.

That is because WoW was designed for the casual player. In this game you actually have to work for things. It is such a breath of fresh air to have a game that brings back the emotions and feel of EQ or DAOC.

elder42

snowmanflvb14_ESO wrote: »

elder42 wrote: »

Melian wrote: »

It sounds like this is more about your personal issues and prejudices than about this game. No offense...

I wouldn't say these things about "WoW" in its current form or something like "Secret World". It is very much this game.

That is because WoW was designed for the casual player.

Again, that is the core of my point. For some reason "casual" has become synonymous with "a disrespectful person", when in reality "casual" is synonymous with "someone who has other things to do with their life outside of video games, but wants to enjoy video games anyway". The only reason hardcores dislike casuals is because casuals have made most games more rewarding for less time investment, but again, the only people that would sink that many hours into one game for a pinch of reward are people who are not better spending that time in things that provide actual rewards with tangible value for equal or lesser time investments (especially when done in comparison to RPGs - the time it takes to beat a hardcore RPG could teach a person to read, write,and speak a new language - yet most gamers would spend more time each week with the hardcore RPG than in learning the new language, assuming one were engaging in both activities in their life at that time).

The fact that MMOs in particular can be made to suit a casual or a hardcore based on the simple altering of one database entry (ie. increase XP gains by 1000% in a hardcore RPG game, you now have a casual game) shows how non-skill they actually are. If it was skill, then a disabled person would have a more difficult time doing it, but when a "hardcore" game can easily be made "casual" just by taking one number and moving the decimal a few points to the right, it means I could be terminal and succeed at the game whether it was "hardcore" or "casual", because it has a very low level of skill or challenge, it is all about how long it takes for the grass to grow.

Detri50

Funny thing, I did spend a lot of time in DAoC, AC and SWG. I never got bored I moved on to see other games...But since SWG. I haven't been able to get interested in any game for more than a few months. Hit the level caps grind raids for gear, then fall asleep doing dailies. (I hate dailies) I'd rather spend 4 or 5 months leveling with my current work schedule rather than talk to the same NPC for 30 days and get nowhere.

So far I feel they did a great job.

Mosti

100% agree I used to spend 40+ hrs a week on games and I just don't have the time anymore, I consider myself a casual gamer now spending hopefully 10 hrs a week on a game , I love ESO for all its worth such an amazing game, but the leveling is moving so slow, and it's frustrating because it seems like I'm going nowhere in the game

elder42

And I agree that dailies are terrible. They're that end-game grind system that's meant to keep people around when there is no content left and the player cannot admit to self that the game has actually run out of content.

But every MMO hits a wall eventually, it's just a matter of how fast they get you to it. Whether it takes 100 hours of /played to see the daily grindfest in place to stall before new content or 1000 hours of /played, there is always someone who hits that wall in every MMO. Maybe you didn't get bored of DAoC and felt it never got old, but someone somewhere saw the actual endgame grind, because it is just about how long you stretch the content out before the player hits the wall.

Making it take longer to run from A to B to turn in a quest to pad out that length, again, is not challenge. Not in any form.

SirLee

I can certainly understand how it would feel like being very old school to a lot of players. They certainly have removed a bunch of features that newer MMO's have had.

Fortunately they forgot to add in the most hard core feature, level and item loss due to death. EQ and such were absolutely brutal with level loss. And good luck getting your body and items back if you lost them in a hard place.

elder42

Mosti wrote: »

100% agree I used to spend 40+ hrs a week on games and I just don't have the time anymore, I consider myself a casual gamer now spending hopefully 10 hrs a week on a game , I love ESO for all its worth such an amazing game, but the leveling is moving so slow, and it's frustrating because it seems like I'm going nowhere in the game

Exactly, which has an audience, definitely that of the prideful "hardcore" mindset, but this game is easily made "dirty casual" by having an office grunt spend 30 minutes going through database entries and multiplying all reward values by five.

And I think they will start moving in that direction, when this game does not maintain a lot of subscribers due to how much time it demands. Oblivion/Skyrim were the most casual of the ES games, that is what the general audience of ES is now, that is what most will expect with ESO, especially the console crowd (which is receiving this game). I do not think this game will be in its current "hardcore" format for very long at all. It is just not realistic for the new audience they have attracted over the last generation, I am actually *very* surprised that noone with power in development said "Hey this is good and all but is it really realistic for a 2014 release?"

elder42

SirLee wrote: »

I can certainly understand how it would feel like being very old school to a lot of players. They certainly have removed a bunch of features that newer MMO's have had.

Fortunately they forgot to add in the most hard core feature, level and item loss due to death. EQ and such were absolutely brutal with level loss. And good luck getting your body and items back if you lost them in a hard place.

Yes, I remember having to form groups of naked people to do zergfest corpse runs. I do not miss that. Not one bit. But there is definitely a group of people who will read that and go "yeah that should still be in these games, but they were taken out because casuals would not like it". Because somehow that would be "challenging", and not just "a waste of time".

elder42

This is definitely the older way of doing things for a niche audience, but it is not old times with a niche audience anymore. This is a massive company with a bunch of businessmen involved now, not a bunch of closet-nerds making games for closet-nerds. This game will not be the game it is now for very long. And I do not expect it to have the same fate, but it's the same reason FFXIV had to be rebooted. It released as a 90s JRPG with MMO features, but someone at Square-Enix forgot that it was no longer the 90s.

Vodkaphile

It's too easy; it's too hard. It's too much like other MMO's; it's not enough like other MMO's. It's too hardcore; it's not hardcore enough.

The fact that the game has the general whiners that plague most MMO's confused this badly on what to complain about shows that they're doing something very, very right.

AstroCat

Look it's too bad you had a hard time balancing your hobby/life priorities and had escapism issues but don't lump your experience onto everyone else.

I have a career, kid, wife, house, tons of other hobbies, etc and I'm finding ESO a blast. I've been gaming since the 70's as a hobby, a hobby not everything in life, and no D&D didn't ruin my life, sheesh who are you Tom Hanks!?

I have no problem logging in a few hours here and there at night a few times a week, maybe getting in a longer session sometime over the weekend.

I'm finding ESO's immersive gameplay exactly what I am looking for, I'm totally done with the grinding, mind numbing, instant reward goofball mmo's trending today.

For me ESO hits the groove for an mmorpg, and has zero chance of ruining my life in order to have fun with it. It sounds like there is more going on for you up and beyond just ESO. Good luck with your future gaming hobby life decisions.

elder42

AstroCat wrote: »

Look it's too bad you had a hard time balancing your hobby/life priorities and had escapism issues but don't lump your experience onto everyone else.

I have a career, kid, wife, house, tons of other hobbies, etc and I'm finding ESO a blast. I've been gaming since the 70's as a hobby, a hobby not everything in life, and no D&D didn't ruin my life, sheesh who are you Tom Hanks!?

I have no problem logging in a few hours here and there at night a few times a week, maybe getting in a longer session sometime over the weekend.

I'm finding ESO's immersive gameplay exactly what I am looking for, I'm totally done with the grinding, mind numbing, instant reward goofball mmo's trending today.

For me ESO hits the groove for an mmorpg, and has zero chance of ruining my life in order to have fun with it. It sounds like there is more going on for you up and beyond just ESO. Good luck with your future gaming hobby life decisions.

This to me sounds a lot like people who smoke cigarettes and get angry when someone talks about how they quit smoking because they realized it was bad for them.

Let's just be honest, MMOs are terrible for people.

Sharee

elder42 wrote: »

It reminds me of the days when my life was pretty much a game, because the game pretty much *required* that your life was the game in order to see progression.

If i log in for an hour, do a quest or two, get a new level of blacksmithing, mix two herbs and discover a new alchemical recipe, and gather some wood - that is already progression for me, and it certainly does not require that my life becomes the game.

Reavan

I am an avid world pvper and I think it's ok the way things are.
You forget there will be many TES fans out there who will just play this because its linked to TES.
Lots of these types of players would not like to be harassed constantly in PVE and thus would quit reducing the money to make a better game for the rest of us.

As for being too old, I disagree many people do not like the way modern MMOs are going, before 'wildstar' for example was generating more positive hype than ESO but now? people mostly see it for what it is, just a regurgitation of all the 'modern' trends that you see in the frontline mmos.
Maybe it was time to take a step back make things harder, more immersive.
That said the game is not that hard it just does not hand everything to you on a silver platter. Which is brilliant.

mutharex

OP, thanks for preordering TESO without knowing how it was or bothering participating in a Beta or even read an article or watch a video. TESO it's not for you, but the extra 50$ was welcome

Ibura

I'm so glad ESO brought 'the days back' in a way! I thought it would never happen again, and I truely hope they will keep their visions.

Today's world is all about rushing...quick, quick to the end while looking for new things to rush to on the horizon. Getting pretty toys and things that bore or decay quickly ....what new is there to get...consume and consume more...one hardly stops for a moment to really enjoy the moment and connect.

ESO is somethings that catches you and keeps your attention, brings you in the moment ...it is amazing, and you acknowledge that by saying you are 'afraid it will rule your life'. But that is entirely up to you...not something outside of you. If something is so delicious you can't stop eating it you won't blame the food for giving you the belly ache. You dose it, you enjoy it bit by bit.

There are these in the world that keep 'value' forever, the 'authentic ones'.

Bloodmonarch

elder42 wrote: »

I feel like I've already gone through a phase with games like this and essentially had to live life irresponsibly as a result of it (something I do not wish to repeat - being locked in a room with a game for 20+ hours a week is not healthy when the outside world continues to turn and that life is essentially decaying itself, swearing off RL friends and ignoring RL problems to invest self deeper and deeper in a fantasy world with NPCs I gain emotional attachment to and consider guildies I'll never meet as "friends").

This is an issue with you...not the game. Just because a game takes longer to level doesn't mean you 'have' to put in the extra hours to level up just as quickly as if it had the levelling curve of WoW. You play the same amount of hours as you would any other game, all it means is it might take you weeks/months to reach max level instead of reaching it within the first week.

I am so sick of this attitude that 'every single' MMO that gets released 'must' had a fast leveling curve where you can comfortably reach maximum level within the first week, and any deviation from this is some how an archaic gaming mechanic that should never be repeated.

My first MMO was Asherons Call 1. Even after 2 years there were only a very small number of max level characters. EQ1 was faster levelling than AC1, but it was still a long road to max level. I enjoyed both games all the way from level 1, I didn't need to be maximum level before I felt I was able to enjoy the game.

The culture of today is all about everything handed on a plate, any kind of effort is termed as a 2nd job. Instant gratification might be an over used phrase, but only because it is so true. The current western culture is, "I just want everything with minimal effort". "Don't make me put any effort in to anything because effort = work and I only play games to have fun". What happened to getting enjoyment from a sense of accomplishment. A feeling of satisfaction that you've achieved something that took effort, even if it is only a game.

This doesn't mean effort has to include raiding 18 hours a day or waiting hours on end for a boss to respawn. I never did any of that in AC1 or EQ1, because I didn't 'want' to, and I didn't feel that I had to just because others did it. And that's the other problem with todays culture, everybody thinks they are entitled to the same as everyone else, even if others are prepared to put more effort in.

I wish people would allow some variety, without feeling the need to try and change it to be like their current favourite game. Part of the problem with todays MMOG scene is that there is no variety, its all the same garbage rehashed in the same format. Lets have something a bit different for once, and if you don't like the difference, go and play any number of the latest titles that have rehashed the same old format. The format that you think is the 'only' format. You have so many to choose from.

The Devs have to have a vision with a game and they have to stick to it, because once they start trying to please everyone, the game no longer remains any particular groups perfect game. Those that currently love ESO for what it is now, and what it wants to be, will lose that interest if the so called 'must have' features of all the other MMO's are included. Using WoW as the usual example.....WoW players will never truly embrace ESO, simply because it isn't WoW. They will play for a while and then either go back to WoW or move to the next major title, and shout for WoW features to be included in that game. They will cry about how archaic it is because it doesn't have X,Y and Z, as if its now written in stone that every single game must be in this format otherwise its some half assed relic from the past.

I believe there are enough people out there that want a more old school MMO.

Thete

Bloodmonarch wrote: »

WoW players will never truly embrace ESO, simply because it isn't WoW. They will play for a while and then either go back to WoW or move to the next major title, and shout for WoW features to be included in that game.

WoW player here; love ESO. Wouldn't play it if it was anything like WoW. Why would I pay extra money to play a game just like the one I already pay for?

As to the OP, I'd say an MMO is as hardcore as you make it. There are players of any MMO (this included) who will be considered hardcore players and those who will be very casual. A good MMO caters to both and everyone in between.

mutharex

Thete wrote: »

Bloodmonarch wrote: »

WoW players will never truly embrace ESO, simply because it isn't WoW. They will play for a while and then either go back to WoW or move to the next major title, and shout for WoW features to be included in that game.

WoW player here; love ESO. Wouldn't play it if it was anything like WoW. Why would I pay extra money to play a game just like the one I already pay for?

As to the OP, I'd say an MMO is as hardcore as you make it. There are players of any MMO (this included) who will be considered hardcore players and those who will be very casual. A good MMO caters to both and everyone in between.

I think a lot of people confuse "wow player" with "wowkiddie" or "wrathbaby". I suppose he meant these last 2 typologies

Bloodmonarch

Thete wrote: »

Bloodmonarch wrote: »

WoW player here; love ESO. Wouldn't play it if it was anything like WoW. Why would I pay extra money to play a game just like the one I already pay for?

Yep..probably should have expanded that generalization a bit ...."WoW players that want all WoW's features in ESO" will never embrace ESO even if they are included. Look at rift, a very good game in its own right that took all the good parts from WoW and improved on many. With better gfx you'd expect it to be a huge hit....but no-one plays it.

If players have put many years into WoW why would they ditch it to play another version of WoW, with better gfx and a few other improvements. The answer is....they didnt

steveb16_ESO46

DJ_Pandatripp wrote: »

I have the opposite feelings on this game than you. I love the fact that not everything is hand fed to me, and I actually have to try and work for items/quests/dungeon completion. I'm so sick of easy MMO's, where I get max level in a week, or have the best gear in a month. I am absolutely in love with ESO, and I'm super excited to see what new content we'll get in the future.

Totally this. I get tired of the 'I can't do this Boss, keep hitting it with the Nerf Hammer until I can' posts. No - go away and get better.

I accept I'm not the greatest MMO player ever. I'm not good enough to tackle some bosses on level. But for me that's an opportunity to go have fun getting so that I can do it. Better gear, better tactics, higher levels, more practised combat skills - whatever. It's all fun.

Sure - quests have levels. That doesn't mean everyone at that level can just rock up and do them. It means it is possible for a good, well-equipped and skilled player to do them on level. Otherwise this would be just another pretty-looking but challenge free crud game like the post Helms Deep 'Auto-attack Your Way To Mordor' LOTRO.

mutharex

Yes pretty please, let's not dumb down the game just because other players cater to mediocrity.... leave us at least one game? Go play some wowclone